APRIL 2016

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So Winter has gone and Spring is here and all is well. Sort of.

I find it really interesting to be able to see the way I observe the world. Previously I think that this would have been almost entirely down to memory, I mean, seeing the overview. Now, with for example, online photo albums, I can see my fascination again and again for details and fragments, the absolute need to mark down the first signs of Spring and the beauty in the gradual transformation of things. Year after year. I also, it seems like to look closely too at the way other people have chosen to see and record their world -

close up and detailed, rhythms, marks, trails, juxtapositions of tones and colours. It could be music and frequently is, those resonant moments when it's felt within as if the body were in fact an instrument. It is about beauty and joy, peace and gratitude for now.

These fragments help me to illustrate my thoughts through the winter days and nights. I now live in a town, a beautiful little town where from my new studio window I look out over rooftops. Or along the path to the High Street, watching unobserved as people make their way to town or down onto my garden, where the amazing variety of birds that I've been feeding through the cold bleak days are now singing. Birdsong is essential to happiness, mine at least.

The river brings all sorts of birds throughout the year but now is my favourite time. A short way from home and I can sit against the church wall, listen to the bell ringers practising and watch the new arrivals preen. In a few days the swifts and swallows will return.